Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: swift240 on June 12, 2007, 04:38:19 PM
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I was talking to an old friend the other day, and he told me all about his PC and how good it was (bragging)
He asked me what I had.
I told him an Athlon with DVD burner and other bits and pieces to go with it.
He was good with that, then I told him I also have an Amiga.
He laughed and said "ohhh a bloody 500 I suppose, a bloody door stop if you ask me"
So I told him it was a 1200 in a Powertower, he didnt know what I was talking about, then proceeded to tell me that you cant put any Amiga in a tower case as the tower cases are all built to PC`s.
So I carried on telling him about the Mediator and Accelerator .
He laughed and said I was {bleep}ting him.
So I invited him back home and showed him my setup.
He stood there I let him play around with it like Finalwriter 97, Pagestream 3.0, AmiCad.
Ohhh yes and a few games.
He said, "crap I never thought the Amiga was that good."
"It looks good in the tower, and I love the Mediator to"
He also loved AmosPro.
Now he is seriously looking at the Amiga range of computers.
I showed him Aminet and he said there is a lot for the Amiga he could not belive it.
I also showed him Jabberwocky and other Internet stuff, SimpleMail Newscoaster, Yam.
I then burnt a CD using CDburner, that really impressed him.
Showed him I had a 13gig HD, but I can use over 40Gig, Zip drives. told him about the PCMCIA the Amiga has and its uses. And USB with PCI card as in any PC. It can use wireless mouse and keyboard.
He left later on the afternoon with a far differant outlook as he had before.
He admitted that the Amiga was a good machine and he wont take the piss again.
I told him that the Amiga is not what some people think it is, and it certainly is not a door stop.
He finally said "Yes Ok, the Amiga you have got is no door stop, I must admit its not bad at all.
I didn`t have time to show him AmiKit on my Athlon but I told him about it and the website.
I love it when these people claim the Amiga is nothing better than a door stop then you show them what it can do.
It soon shut him up, I cant wait until he gets a door stop ohhhhh sorry I mean an Amiga.
:-) :-)
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Good 1 Swift240...
I guess actions really do speak louder than words!
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I assume you forgot to mention that your "power tower" is more expencive that the blazing PC he had built. I guess you also did not point out that you can't playback HD res video or do anything serious in 3d. He would be lucky to get all the gear in years time and then i'm not sure it would be reliable. Anyway I have never seen a homemade tower that was not falling apart or that looked better the what commodore shipped. Nothing is more confusing that half the truth.
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Yes I was fair in telling him it cant play any kind of DVD film in its present state.
But then again he knew that as I told him my CPU was an 030 at 40Mhz.
He knew the limitations of my Amiga but was also ready to admit for what it was, it was very good at what it done and was faster than he actually thought it was going to be.
He was also impressed with my Powertower how it was made.
Yes I did tell him they are costly but then again any thing for the Amiga will be costly in some areas, as its Amiga then we feel obliged to be ripped off.
The prices we get charged for, we pay or we don`t thats the down side of the Amiga, lets rip the B****** off if they want it then they will pay for it.
Sorry but thats how I see it. No one can tel me a Powertower or D-Box is worth that amount of money, mostly its the back steel panel that is not the same as an ATX type so because of that we have to pay a huge amount of money in order to get it.
Some one must be racking in a small fortune, and its not me.
But at the end of the day I consider the Amiga worth it.
You know what they say, "you want it then you will pay for it" And they bloody well know it.
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swift240 let the loser brainfarting... tell your friend to enjoy these also:
ProStationAudio under AmigaOS3.x (http://www.webalice.it/cieffeeditingvideo/psa/FS.jpg)
Amigift 2.0 on AmigaOS3.x (http://www.webalice.it/cieffeeditingvideo/mos/NEW.png)
If you wanna take a look at Amigift 2.0 under MOS for PowerUP, let me know.
ah, btw... it works now even under AmigaOS4 :)
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Expensive yes! But, as far as reliability goes I Have two D-box towers with mediator sx and Fast ATA 1200. The only problem I have had with them since I assembled them over two years ago is one failed floppy drive. Also, the D-box is no Alien tower but I think it looks nice. I also have dual Xeon workstations I use for Business. I do not even compare the two as for speed there is no camparison. When I want to use amiga stuff on my free time I use my Amigas, when I do my work stuff its on the intel. I do wish I had more free time.
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Wow the revolution is comming!!! :lol:
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Excellent :lol:
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guru-666 wrote:
I assume you forgot to mention that your "power tower" is more expencive that the blazing PC he had built.
He may also have forgotten to mention that his power tower will be worth a lot more in some years' time than his blazing PC will be.....
(compare the prices of a 10 or 15 year old Amiga hardware on eBay now with the prices of similar PC hardware).
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Yup, good point that. Todays blazing PC is tomorrows blazing bonfire :lol:
Out of all the computers I have here, the Amiga A1200t is easily the oldest, as all the pc's of that era are long gone :crazy:
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@guru666
So, someone posts about a positive Amiga advocacy experience and you go and tell him how it should have been more negative and that Amiga's really do just suck anyway so he shouldn't have even bothered? Nice. :roll:
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Yes some times you cant win.
I some times wander why I bother.
How on earth can any one expect an Amiga with an 030/40 CPU to do what a modern day PC can.
Its so blatantly obvious it cant, but I suppose it has to be explained in a negative way that an Amiga cant do these things.
I should have put down all the things the Amiga cant do, that would have been more acceptable.
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Group hug everyone :-?
Don't forget that Guru-666 plays the devils advocate in these matters :python:
Lets all go and have a :pint:
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Good job Swift240,
That is the kind of Amiga experience I want to hear about.
I have no misguided visions of Amiga rising and taking over the world of computing some day, but I love to hear about people that still use their Amigas daily and have them set up to still be useful. Your setup sounds like a good one and you know how to use it.
I am not familiar with AmiCAD can you tell me more about it? I will have to google it or search on AmiNet for it.
@guru-666,
Get up on the wrong side of the bed today? Why blast Swift240 for what good he did?
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Hi
Well done....
What you demonstrated is that anyone, I mean anyone can own a PC, but only a select determined, dedicated and very lucky few can own the kind of kit you have.
A magical story, and one I could read over and over again.
scuzz
http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com
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spirantho wrote:
guru-666 wrote:
I assume you forgot to mention that your "power tower" is more expencive that the blazing PC he had built.
He may also have forgotten to mention that his power tower will be worth a lot more in some years' time than his blazing PC will be.....
(compare the prices of a 10 or 15 year old Amiga hardware on eBay now with the prices of similar PC hardware).
That value is based on rarity, not on any given usefulness. Here's an example: any old copy of TSR's Dungeon Masters Guide for AD&D can be had for $2.00. However, even people who don't play any version of the D&D rules, but instead other fantasy RPGs, still regard it as a great gaming tool.
On the other hand, this little jewel:
http://acaeum.com/ddindexes/modpages/st.html
...in mint condition will set you back nearly three grand. I have a .PDF scan of it and you know what? It's utter junk. But ooooh boy it's rare rare rare so that means it's more valuable...monitarily.
:idea:
Or to put it in a way that amigans in general might find less offensive, how much is 3.9 + attendant 3.1 ROMS? Now how much is a copy of Windows XP corporate everything?
Just because something has a high price it doesn't follow that it has a high value.
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@amigadave
I dunno, It's nice, I guess.
The truth is I don't like converted amiga towers, I think they are ugly, I love the real amiga 1200, I honestly can say I have never seen a "fake" tower that I liked.
I also don't care much for the mediator, so when I hear ppl saing how great that crap is I just can't feel it.
@bootdisk and @spirantho
Having spent a fortune on amiga parts I can tell you, they are NOT going to be worth more in 10 years, they are worth much less than they where 10 years ago. I sure hope I'm wrong, becasue I have a lot of amiga stuff. If anything a power tower will be worth LESS becasue he hacked up a perfectly good amiga into a tin can.
I still like the amiga but having a wide range of computers to play with, the amiga is SO very lacking in so many areas I often use other boxes.
(no not windows as some of you think that is the ONLY other option)
It's cool to find ppl that grew up with amiga and talk about how cool they where, I just don't see how you can get into it right now... it's very $$$ with limited results.
@swift240
"I then burnt a CD using CDburner, that really impressed him."
some ppl are very easy to impress I guess!! LOL My point is did you tell him how much it COST you to burn that CD?
"I also showed him Jabberwocky and other Internet stuff, SimpleMail Newscoaster, Yam."
did you show him how well the browers work? thats alwasy IMPRESSIVE!
It's not about being negative, its about being realistic.
When he gets an amiga he should know, it's just for tinkering, otherwise he will be deapointed and out a LOT of cash....
@Framiga
takes one to know one, pal.
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guru-666 wrote:
@swift240
"I then burnt a CD using CDburner, that really impressed him."
some ppl are very easy to impress I guess!! LOL My point is did you tell him how much it COST you to burn that CD?
"I also showed him Jabberwocky and other Internet stuff, SimpleMail Newscoaster, Yam."
did you show him how well the browers work? thats alwasy IMPRESSIVE!
It's not about being negative, its about being realistic.
When he gets an amiga he should know, it's just for tinkering, otherwise he will be deapointed and out a LOT of cash....
My guess is that he was impressed because he thought that Amigas were ancient history that just weren't capable of anything like the stuff mentioned above. The fact that an old, out of date, 40 MHz computer that you thought was only good for playing (the original) lemmings can do these things, could be seen as impressive.
Hans
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@Guru-666
What planet are you on?
You claim to like Amigas but seem more interested in slagging it of because of it's limitations.
Yet you want to keep them limited by not towerising and using the likes of the Mediator.
(A great little bit of kit btw)
:roll:
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See I happen to think lemmings is a better use of an old amiga!
@TiredOLife
limited? nah, just get a 4000d or t if you want to expand, I don't like hacky hardware, like mediator..(you do, oh well :whack: ) Never had the need for PCI or USB on any amiga I owned. why? the amiga does those things poorly. It does other thigns well! I like the toaster/flyer and still use that form time to time.
I have many bix box amigas and use network card to connect them via NFS to my network. Ihave beeter machines that do USB very well!
I don't want to keep them limited, I just dont; want to create a frankinstein box that is weak and $$$ at the end of the day. Amigas are great right out of the BOX man!
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@Guru-666
Frankenstien like?
Letting your imagination run away with you.
Its a box with components in, same as any other computer.
You don't appear to have a problem with other big box machines.
I have large files, programs, mp3's etc that I need to transport to other computers from time to time.
Suggest an alternative better than a USB flash pen.
USB works well for me.
Define poorly.
I have my Miggy attached to a 19 inch TFT
Have two hds,floppy drive, a cd rewriter and dvd rewriter.
A Blizzard 1260 and FastATA ide interface.
Sound card, network card, USB card, graphics and TV card.
Have a mutiple flash card reader.
Would have a hell of a job runnning this lot without a tower and mediator.
Hacky?
Works well enough for me.
:-D
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then enjoy it, I'm not so insane that I need to insult your setup. It is yours.
I perfer origional amigas. They look better.
one definition of hacky could be:
hacky, forcing something to do something it was not designed for, IOW making a 1200 have USB and a video card. Ripping it out of its case and wrapping it in tin foil (my opinion on power towers) and calling it "grovvy" = hacky. (and tacky)
now there maybe more definitions of "hacky" and that's cool....
as to the mediator, there maybe more technical people that can tell why is a half ass USB stack....
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To be honest, I don't think the 1200 looked that good in it's original casing.
Bit of a backward step in that respect when compared to the A500.
The A600 because it had no numeric keypad, looked even worse than the 1200.
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transfering large files?
CD's are easy
using a networks is the best. I haven an NFS server that stores all my files fro all my computers.
well that's cool, I disagree. I like the 4000 (T) the best. I don't have a 1200 becasue it can't do what I want but I think it looks neat. I like the samll form factor more and more. It's smart they put the PSU outside ofthe case so it's quite and low heat! I may just have to get a 1200 one day.. want ti to play old games!
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CDs are not as quick and a pen fits easier in a pocket.
Large files over a network isn't brilliant either or always possible.
The A4000 does look the business.
The A1200 looks a bit toy like.
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networks works fine for me, beside it's all backed up adn easy to manage.
the 1200 does look like a toy, a great, fun and interesting toy!
the power tower looks like a regular PC or some kind of doorstop. LOL
:horse:
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Nice one man!! nice too see a 10 year old Amiga can still turn heads...
Everyone Crank JIM POWER!!
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Using a Mirage myself.
Quite like the green front.
Suppose it's not that much different from any other PC box though.
What happened to beauty is only skin deep?
I though it was what is inside that counts.
:-D :-D
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Thats sweet. Nice job on that, and yes the Amiga still rocks.
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I tend to agree with guru-666, I like the classic Amigas in their original form.
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I prefer a mid-way option:
I really LOVE my Miggys. Even for today's use.
So I made a MediTator tower myself, hacking a crappy Frankenstein. But I keep a not-that-good A1200 and other good oldyes (500/600/2000Toaster) to back-days apps. The Windoz CRAP is ages after Amiga today.
But guess what system is my preference? Yup: Workbench. Tiny, smart, reliable.
No need to "update" every week. No need to buy expensive/monster-brute-force hardware ever six months to still play "Freecell" in a decent speed.
And YES! I want to use it for every day "serious" work. Don't get me :crazy:, I don't to :horse:.
Yes, I noticed today's hardware for Amigas are no more. No super-duper-hiper-mega-combo-blaster-WTF brand new boards or apps.
The 1st reason I love this abandonned hardware is quite simple: is a machine 10 years before is age! A bloody $$$$ 1200 can do "almost" a peecee crappy box can do.
No DVD tools? Did you check aminet last week? Ok, only for Mophos, but who cares? All I want is mail, some IRC, web browsing, word processing, see some pics (naked hot girls!!!!! Yes! Yes!) and gaming a little. Need you a US$2k Bill Gaytes box for this? Bloody hell, NO!
That was my 2 cents...
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guru-666 wrote:
@swift240
"I then burnt a CD using CDburner, that really impressed him."
some ppl are very easy to impress I guess!! LOL My point is did you tell him how much it COST you to burn that CD?
"I also showed him Jabberwocky and other Internet stuff, SimpleMail Newscoaster, Yam."
did you show him how well the browers work? thats alwasy IMPRESSIVE!
It's not about being negative, its about being realistic.
When he gets an amiga he should know, it's just for tinkering, otherwise he will be deapointed and out a LOT of cash....
Handy hint no. 26:
Actually reading and understanding a post before replying can help prevent you looking like a total prick.
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@Rkauer
There is FryingPan for DVD burning on classic Amigas.
Think it works for Morphos, AROS and OS4.0 as well.
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@guru-666
What do you mean how much did it COST?
Well the LiteOn CD burner cost me the same amount as you would pay out for a LiteOn CD burner for a PC.
I paid £15.00 for it NEW in the box.
The software I used was MakeCD cost FREE with serial number.
The CD`s I used was no more than the normal cost of blank CD`s
So are you are talking like it COST a great deal to buy the CD burner and software?
Tell you what why don`t we all slag the Amiga off and say how it cant do this, how it cant do that, and lets not forget how COSTLY it is.
I have 2 CD drives in my Tower and they both cost the SAME as for a PC as they did for the Amiga.
I have 2 HD`s in my Amiga they both cost the same as if they was for a PC as they was for the Amiga.
I use a 17" monitor and that cost the same for a PC as it did for the Amiga.
In actual fact this is how much I paid for each:-
1 LiteOn CD burner £15.00
1 52x CD rom 7.50
1 13Gig HD £4.00 eBay
1 10Gig HD £3.99 eBay
1 Powertower case WITH 1200 mobo internal flopy drive, and PSU, with 2 HD slide in bays all for £77.99
1 Mediator SX 6 slot £169.99
1 Amiga SpeedMouse £3.00
1 PC keyboard £4.00
1 PC keyboard adapter £14.99 eBay
1 4way IDe`99 HD adapter £19.99
1 Apollo Turbo MK-iii accelerator 030/40 £34.99 eBay
1 32meg Ram 72pin £1.00 eBay
Now remember the Powertower came with that lot on board.
So break that down and think of the money if they was all separate.
Ohhh yes the OS3.9 CD was 29.99 can you pay that much for a LEGAL OS for any PC? Like Winodws 2000, Windows XP Home Edition or XP Pro?
Meaning OS for OS between the Amiga and a PC?
No of course the Amiga CAN NOT play DVD films or HD (High Definition)
But then again any one knowing that an 68030/40Mhz cant do that will already know that.
What do you really expect ?
An Amiga 1200 to play DVD and HD? or to use 3D like a modern day powerful PC?
We all if not most of us already know that a an Amiga CANT, thats why most of us have PC`s to do that job.
Well I use my Athlon to do that sort of thing, and I use my Amiga for all other stuff as I like it that way.
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@swift240
ahh what the hell.
as for OS's....
unbutu is free, it can burn cd and dvds right out of the box, you see that are many OS's other than windows and amigaOS, there are options!
The only thing I want from my amigas is a bit of oldschool fun, I'm not looking ot impress anybody, I'm not looking to make money or invent a modern day amiga.
in the end I'm just suprised that anybody is impressed by the things you mentioned, but I guess many people have never used anyting other than a windows box and just assume other computers suck, which they don't!
"Well I use my Athlon to do that sort of thing, and I use my Amiga for all other stuff as I like it that way."
thats my point why waist time and money forcing the amiga to do things that it sucks at, like surfing the web or doing USB stuff.
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@Guru-666
Hey, less of that accusational,imflamatory talk.
That can get people into trouble.
I didn't force my Miggy to do anything.
It wanted to do it.
:-D :-D
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coldfish wrote:
I tend to agree with guru-666, I like the classic Amigas in their original form.
I like them all. I have quite a few original, and the Frankenstein setups. They all have their purpose, I enjoy them all. I like the 3000t best, but they are very heavy. One of my projects if I ever finish is to make an aluminum chassis for one of my 3000t's.
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@amiga92570,
I dunno, I had a semi-franken-amiga and felt I had actually removed some of the hardware's charm. In the end the A1200 went back to its native case and I got a PC for the more demanding tasks.
@rkauer
I never understand why people "hate" PCs. You dont -have- to upgrade unless you want the latest and greatest stuff. I'm using a late 90's win2000pro P3 laptop as my "net-connected-box" to type this, it cost me AUD$200 s/h and has been in use every day for about 2 years, with Kerio and AVG (both free) 2K still runs just as fast as when I first installed it, (just stay away from pr0n sites).
I have 3 other PCs that have been very reliable, one runs Ubuntu, one is a high-end XPbased video editing suite and the third a XP based HTPC with emulators and AVstuff galore.
I -wish- I could say my Amigas were as versatile, functional and affordable back when I had them.
btw, An A500 isnt even very good as a doorstop, its better as a chock to stop your car rolling away. :-D
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guru-666 wrote:
@amigadave
...
The truth is I don't like converted amiga towers, I think they are ugly, I love the real amiga 1200, I honestly can say I have never seen a "fake" tower that I liked.
I also don't care much for the mediator, so when I hear ppl saing how great that crap is I just can't feel it.
...
:shrug:
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value is based on rarity, not on any given usefulness
emmm.. wrong.
Because everything built for PCs is designed to be obsolete right after you buy it, anything more than five or ten years old can be considered "rare". Go into any PC or Mac shop and ask for a Nubus card, or a serial mouse, or the retail version of Windows NT4.0 Workstation, or an ISA soundcard, or a Pentium Pro 233 CPU. You'll get a lecture about the "scarcity" of these items, but does that automatically mean they have value? No. Most of that crap has no value because... its crap! There ain't a lot of nostalgia surrounding the x486 nor a lot of websites dedicated to promoting its upappreciated virtues. No one gives a sh1t about the x486 because it was a piece of garbage to begin with. Items of that vintage for PCs are "rare" because they suck and no one wants them. Hence they have no value. Items of that vintage for the Amiga, on the other hand, were designed for a vastly superior computer -- one that does have a lot of nostalgia surrounding it and one that, because of its forward-thinking, modular design, can still be used professionally for many things despite being almost 20 years old. Can someone please tell me just how badass their x486 is?
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I remember drooling over the 486 back in the day. Playing Descent, Duke Nukem, Raise of the Tirad, Doom and rocking Future Crew demos on a 486DX2/66 was the bomb.
Of course the 486 has little value today, thats not because it was crap hardware, it's because the platform didn't die. Newer and better products followed, unlike Amiga. This is why a 486 can be had for free but a tricked out Amiga costs more than a Mac Pro.
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@stopthegop
I had a few 486`s in my time, and to be honest I had more problems with those than I ever did with any Amiga.
The best one was a DX486/100 that was not to bad at all, but all the same it did give me problems, but as with my A600 (way back then) I had no problems what so ever, that A600 with 1Meg of extra ram was far more stable and far more reliable than any 486 or Pentium 233 of the time.
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For what they are, they're good. An amiga with a 700k floppy and 1mb ram and no HDD got you a LOT farther than a 386 with similar specs... back in the day... And who doesnt love MOD music!
But you really wont be impressing a 8800GTX user playing Crysis with your 13GB HDD, even if it goes up to 40GB...
a 320GB 16mb cashe PC SATA2 HDD is only $107AUD :/
Its funny... i could so have been one of the avid "neversaydie" amiga fanboys. All i needed was any little thing to keep me going... a friend with an amiga! even if they didnt lose the last PD stand at the computer swapmeet.
They died! this site is tripping me out!!
the Red and white globe icon? what?!
i had workbench 1.3.3 and no nothing of the above and beyond.
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jimeh wrote:
But you really wont be impressing a 8800GTX user playing Crysis with your 13GB HDD, even if it goes up to 40GB...
And where on this site did you read that we DO want to impress such a person?
They died! this site is tripping me out!!
We know. We don't care. We like fiddling about with old computers. It's like people who still play on Famicoms, Colecovisions and the Commodore 64. When have you heard someone say that his NES totally kicked a WII's a$$?
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@jimeh
i dont know what u trying to do here but it looks like u are a bit frustrated that the amiga is still live and kicking
the games on a winblows machine are that dirty machinecoded that u need almost 2gig ram and 512mb vidcard to play it...
even then it crashes severall times even on vista
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@jimeh
i dont know what u trying to do here but it looks like u are a bit frustrated that the amiga is still live and kicking
the games on a winblows machine are that dirty machinecoded that u need almost 2gig ram and 512mb vidcard to play it...
even then it crashes severall times even on vista
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sega dreamcast totally kicks the Wii's ass!
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My dad's bigger than your dad.
--
moto
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What?
That big he is almost Frankenstein like?